One story for the weekend is obviously Warner’s seven-years-later-sequel, 300: Rise of an Empire topping fellow family friendly newcomer Mr. Peabody & Sherman, but I’m also wondering if a film has ever had a week like 12 Years a Slave. Not only did it take home Oscar’s Best Picture on Sunday night, but it was then released on DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday and yet still managed to find its way into the top ten this weekend. Now that is an Oscar bump.
First for the top of the box office where 300 brought in an estimated $45 million from 3,470 theaters, $6.8m of that from IMAX screens. With only a “B” CinemaScore I don’t expect it to hang around too long, but it should manage to make up for that $100 million budget soon enough as I expect overseas returns to also be quite nice. However, putting things into perspective, the 2007 release managed $70.9 million its opening weekend and didn’t need 3-D to pad its results (63% of Rise of an Empire‘s total came from 3-D).
In second was Fox and Dreamworks’ animated Mr. Peabody & Sherman, which headed into 3,934 theaters with a $145 million budget and came away with a disappointing $32.5 million to go along with an “A-” CinemaScore. This result isn’t a huge surprise to me considering we’re coming off the success of The Lego Movie and it’s just too much money for families to continue to spend at the movies. However, with a CinemaScore like that it may be able to hold on nicely week-to-week.
Looking at the carryovers, last week’s #1, Non-Stop dipped 46.7% for an estimated $15.3 million, which is a really good hold for the $50 million budgeted feature proving that “A-” CinemaScore did deliver some solid word of mouth.
Fox’s Son of God wasn’t so lucky in its second weekend, dropping 63% and bringing in $9.5 million. However, since I assume most of the money this film is making is gravy I don’t think we’ll be hearing any complaints as the shortened down version of the television miniseries, “The Bible”, has now managed $41 million in ten days.
Other big news begins with Disney’s Oscar-winning animated feature Frozen, which has now spent 15 consecutive weeks in the top ten. Of course, it’s not like this hasn’t been accomplished before, but it is tied with 2001’s A Beautiful Mind with the longest streak since My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Chicago managed 18 weeks and 16 weeks respectively in 2002. We’ll see if Frozen can keep the streak alive next weekend, but I don’t think it will have the legs to match the 35 consecutive weekends E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial racked up beginning in 1982.
Next is Wes Anderson‘s The Grand Budapest Hotel, which opened in only four theaters this weekend where it brought in $800,000 for a $200,000 per theater average, a record for a live-action movie on more than one screen and falling just behind Kevin Smith‘s Red State, which managed $204,000 from one screen, though I think the ticket prices on that one were inflated because Smith also provided an introduction before each, making it more of an event.
Finally, 12 Years a Slave saw a 146% Oscar bump this weekend as Fox Searchlight added 654 theaters from which the film managed $2.4 million in total. I wonder if a movie has ever been released on DVD and Blu-ray the same weekend it also found itself adding more than 654 theaters. The Best Picture winner is now up to $53.3 million domestically.
This coming weekend sees the release of Need for Speed, Tyler Perry’s Single Moms Club, Veronica Mars: The Movie and a limited release of Enemy. Any winners in that lot?
